what did you wrench on today??

[Suzukian]

The idle cable sent was the wrong thread. I just found the original one. The PO had turned it all the way out, it was under the seat, under the owners manual in the storage area. Got to take it apart again. Aargh.

 

[adamdaz]

A Range Rover. Well, a kids electric play car (Feber brand). Such a silly thing, but it makes my daughters giggle. They love it. It was a marketplace buy a couple years ago. Came as a slow 12V thing. One of the original motors gave out, so I upgraded to 18 V, which gave it a little more umph and louder giggles. When I bought it, I needed new batteries, so I took out the dead 12V and replaced it with 6, sealed 6V batteries. My daughters have yet to run down batteries in a single day. The 6V batteries also let me wire up a complex set of relays so that when they hit the "gas", momentary on switch, it runs as 18V. Then when plugged into the battery charger, it switches the wiring to a 12V setup. Keeps me from having to change wires around everytime it needs to be charged.

So the "wrenching" today was soldering wires in the spagetti mess that is the relay system to fix connectors that broke.

 

[Suzukian]

Finished mounting the exhausts mufflers I designed for my ZZR1200. They sound great!! Knocked 40 lbs. off of the bike.

 

[dorkburger]

Bit of riding, but of wrenching. I took the bike today to pick up cold medicine. It didn’t want to start or run properly, and it would only run on prime. Once underway, I switched the petcock to on and it quickly ran out of gas with a full tank. Switched back to prime and it would run, but with a miss and some popping and farting on deceleration. I did a quick touch test of the pipes in a parking lot and number 2 seemed cooler then the rest. I suspected petcock issues. After lunch I confirmed # 2 was much cooler with the infrared thermometer. I pulled the tank, and while I couldn’t see the vacuum line for the petcock, it either was already off, or loose enough that it easily slipped off and may have been leaking. I replaced the line. Restarting the bike showed consistent exhaust temps and a the bikes usual nice impatient sounding idle from the Yoshi exhaust can.. I took it for another ride... smooth as mother’s butter... (that’s a song reference)....

 

[Buffalo Bill]

6/8/2023, Low side @ apex in negative camber corner, Lafayette IN.
Bike is healing well:

 

[rphillips]

Makes sense Glen. Vacuum leak causes pet cock not to work, same vacuum leak causes problem on # 2 cyl... Ain't simple fixes great.

 

[Guest]

Today's job, replace a dead fuel pump on the GSX

 

[dorkburger]

6/8/2023, Low side @ apex in negative camber corner, Lafayette IN.
Bike is healing well:

Yikes Bill. How did you fare?

 

[Suzukian]

Had to do the clutch cover gasket on my '83 GS750ES. I apparently didn't catch the first gasket had missed it's mark, and the following Brain fart caused me to not notice the bottom came off the pins. I wondered where all the oil went. Luckily, very short ride, no oil on bike or tire, all is well.

Also, I purchased a set of 4 signal lights off of EBAY that look like smaller versions of the original signal lights for the same bike, and only cost $14 bucks, + $10 shipping. They came in, and are very solidly built, even came with 2 year warranty.

 

[alke46]

Not m/c related but today I tore into my zero turn lawn mower. It has been leaving oil droppings on the garage floor so I had to put cardboard under it to catch the oil.
My 1st time for removing the hydrostatic transmission. Need to find out what is causing the leak. I am suspecting some sort of seal failure inside the two halves. Will talk to the maintenance dept at the shop where I bought it and discuss the issue soon.

IMG_20230619_121302136 by Larry Alkire, on Flickr

IMG_20230619_170235996 by Larry Alkire, on Flickr

IMG_20230619_170242576 by Larry Alkire, on Flickr

IMG_20230619_172734153 by Larry Alkire, on Flickr

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Yikes Bill. How did you fare?

Not so bad, luggage rack bruised my left calf as the bike slid away. That swelled up for a week.
Bike is ok, just the stator cover had a tiny hole. Brazed that shut.
So lucky a good friend drove down with a trailer. took me home.

 

[Suzukian]

Glad to hear you're O.K. What did you Braze that with?

 

[dorkburger]

Glad that you're ok Bill.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Glad to hear you're O.K. What did you Braze that with?

I bought a MagTorch kit and some US Forge self fluxing 1/8" aluminum rods. Did the job but no regulators, so flame changed as tank pressure dropped.
I like brazing and think it's worth getting a light duty gas welding kit with regulators.
Lot of things could be gas brazed easier, than electric welded.

 

[Rich82GS750TZ]

I know next to nothing about welding or brazing of any kind, but this video popped up a few weeks ago. I didn’t know this was possible.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Excellent video, amazing build.
Did not like his method of putting a saw blade on a grinder, no thank you.

 

[Carter Turk]

Hey Bill, unfortunate about the low side. Off camber so hard parts were closer to the pavement .
Did anything touch to cause the low side? Just curious

 

[Suzukian]

Excellent video, amazing build.
Did not like his method of putting a saw blade on a grinder, no thank you.

I use a produce called "Alumaloy". I've used it for decades. I've fixed my aluminum ladders, lawn mower engine cases, etc. The stuff is amazing. The way that guy built it up is quite amazing. I usually put a piece of steel behind the surface I want to build up, as it will not stick to steel. I've milled this stuff, when I had to fix an aluminum cylinder head on a car, and you could not see the area I had filled with it. There's an actual exchange of electrons, so this is more than a braze, it's actually binding to the surface on an molecular level. You will be able to grind that as smooth as you wish to without worrying about affecting it.

https://www.alumaloy.com/

 

[Guest]

Washed out my diaper. Onto what appears to be an instrument cluster problem. The coolant temp bounces between cold and over temp. Sensor and wiring to ECM all appear good.

 

[Guest]

Inserted a fixed resistor in place of the sensor and the temp indicator is still jumping. Dug out my tablet, plugged it in and the temperature is stable as the cluster's indicator continues to jump.
The cluster uses a basic serial interface. Nothing near as advanced as CAN. The reset of the cluster appears fine so time to pull it. This is the second cluster I have had fail. The tach died on one which turned out to be a bad IC which I can't seem to source. Time to bust out the soldering iron.

This GS is a pretty old but compared with my GS1100E's, it's a rocket ship. ECM, what's that? lol.